


Keep Your Eyes Open

by EdnaV



Series: (Don't) Sleep [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Angst, Aspec Friendly, Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale is a Mess (Good Omens), Character Study, Emotional Hurt, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, LGBTQ Themes, M/M, Meta, Threats of Violence, except that it isn't subtle, it's a subtle metaphor for being in the closet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-18
Updated: 2020-02-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:41:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22793431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EdnaV/pseuds/EdnaV
Summary: Aziraphale is careful. Aziraphale never sleeps.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: (Don't) Sleep [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1640497
Comments: 14
Kudos: 112





	Keep Your Eyes Open

**Author's Note:**

  * For [EmAndFandems](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmAndFandems/gifts).



> For [EmAndFandems,](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmAndFandems) whose metadrabbles-turned-ficlets have inspired this one.

Aziraphale never sleeps.  _ Virtue is ever-vigilant,  _ he says. Words to live by.

Virtue is ever-vigilant, and Gabriel can pay a surprise visit any time. 

Gabriel always looks dashing. How could you waste your time sleeping, when you have such a model of efficiency?

Gabriel could call — and Sandalphon would be with him, of course.

Sandalphon looks stupid, maybe he  _ is _ stupid. He hasn’t read as many books as Aziraphale (he hasn’t read many books, period), that’s for sure. He doesn’t know many things that Aziraphale knows (he doesn’t know the Greek word for “revelation”, he doesn’t know the joy of eating a perfect macaron, he doesn’t know that Aziraphale has an Arrangement with a demon). But Sandalphon knows things that Aziraphale’s only heard in whispers — things about causing pain (Aziraphale was made to protect, that’s what a Principality must do), and doing it with the joyful smile of the righteous unencumbered by doubt (Aziraphale thinks of all the times he was ordered to hurt human beings, or worse, to just stand there and witness while others were hurting them. He did as he was told, he still feels like he’s missing something;  _ maybe I’m as stupid as Sandalphon,  _ he thinks, and then he asks Her for forgiveness, how could he compare himself to an Archangel?)

A voice inside Aziraphale keeps on repeating him that one day, if he’s not careful, Sandalphon’s going to hurt  _ him. _ That voice reminds him that, if he doesn’t watch out, Sandalphon, and Gabriel, and Michael, and all the rest of Heaven, and God Herself, will find out that one thing that Aziraphale doesn’t want anyone to see— that one thing that Aziraphale himself refuses to see (he teeters on the edge of looking at it); that one thing that he has to deny three, ten, a hundred times (he breathes: in, out, and this time he hasn’t said the words yet, he almost didn’t think them); it’s that one thing that he knows that will make him Fall (but not today, today he’s been good), that one thing that could rip away his very nature of angel (but they haven’t found it out yet, he’s managed to hide it even to God Herself, or he wouldn’t be here).

So Aziraphale is careful. He spends his days and his nights with his eyes wide open. Even when he closes his eyelids to taste every drop of wine, to take in all the perfume of an old volume, to almost lose himself in the music that’s filling the concert room — those are just fleeting escapes. They’re a sleight-of-hand better than any trick that John Maskelyne ever conjured:  _ look at this odd angel, fixated on his books and his earthly pleasures, don’t look there, don’t ask, I can’t tell — _

_ I can’t tell that I love a demon. _

No. Not that. From that one, there’s an escape. “Love your enemy,” file under that, it’s still angelic.

_ I can’t tell that I’m in love with Crowley. _

_ I can’t be in love with Crowley. _

_ I can’t be. _

_ I am not. _

And so Aziraphale loses himself in his books, in his earthly pleasures, in a bit of smugness (he’s survived today, he’s earned the right to be a bit smug). He allows himself just one tiny transgression — he looks out for Crowley, that demon’s too reckless,  _ as if he wanted to destroy himself, _ and Aziraphale can’t even bear the tought of a world without Crowley (a dangerous thought, and he knows it, but it overwhelms him every time, and it reminds him that — no,  _ I can’t be; I am not). _

So, Aziraphale never closes his eyes, not really.

_ It’s not so bad,  _ he tells himself. He doesn’t close his eyes, and he doesn’t hear the voice of that man begging him to save his child from the water, that wife turning into a pillar of salt, that young man looking for his Father; he doesn’t ask himself if he’s a pathetic excuse for a Principality for letting all of that happen.

_ It’s not so bad,  _ he tells himself.  _ More time to read. _

Aziraphale’s ever-vigilant, and he keeps vigil first and foremost against himself.

You can’t afford to sleep, when you’re running away from yourself.


End file.
